Sean Menendez is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Taxand in Miami. He brings more than 25 years of experience primarily in advising public and closely-held corporations, and pass-through entities on a wide variety of federal, state and international tax matters including, but not limited to, entity structuring, acquisitions and dispositions, tax accounting methods, audit defense, financial reporting of income taxes and tax compliance.

Mr. Menendez has served clients in a wide variety of industries including financial services, real estate, retail, distribution and manufacturing.

Prior to joining A&M Taxand, Mr. Menendez spent seven years in the Lead Tax Services practice of Deloitte Tax. He began his career working in the Federal and International Tax practices of KPMG.

Mr. Menendez earned a master's degree in accounting with a tax specialization and a bachelor's degree in accounting, cum laude, from the University of Florida. He is a Certified Public Accountant in Florida and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is a former Board Member of Hands on Miami, a not-for-profit entity serving the needs of Miami-Dade County.

Amid the flurry of tax reform activity that’s consuming taxpayers and their advisors, it may be easy to miss some new reporting obligations beginning in 2018 that were not part of the tax reform legislation.

I vividly recall the moment in the summer of 2014 while attending a CPE event at the Miami Marlins Park. Sitting in a room of primarily controllers and chief financial officers, those on the front lines of what was about to come, it became clear that we were in for a heavy dose of CPE on a newly issued U.S. GAAP standard on revenue recognition for customer contracts.

Whatever your political affiliation might be, the recent election of Donald Trump to be the U.S.’s 45th president and the Republicans maintaining control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate presents us with the possibility of perhaps the most significant tax reform since the Reagan Tax Reform Act of 1986.

In case you have missed the financial headlines, there is an ongoing heavyweight bout in the federal tax controversy arena that we should all be watching with interest. It may not have the aura of the recent Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Manny Pacquiao bout in Las Vegas, but this one could shape the manner in which the IRS deals with certain situations in this purported era of government resource constraints.

Last year, many early-stage companies significantly reduced payroll taxes thanks to a new federal tax credit including many of our start-ups in the tech industry. The Qualified Small Business (QSB) R&D Tax Credit, passed into law in 2015, allows qualified small businesses to offset OASDI (i.e. social security) taxes with R&D tax credits originally claimed on federal income tax returns. The 2018 calendar year presents yet another opportunity for companies to realize these savings. How are these credits achieved?